Sorin Nafari and the Missing Tricorder
by Next-Big-Thing00
Summary: Sorin, son of Spock and Nyota, loses his favorite possession. OC.


Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek.

...

"What story do you want me to read to you tonight, _mtoto_?"

Young Sorin quirked an eyebrow.

Every night before S'Chn T'Gai Sorin Nafari fell into the restful relms of sleep, Mama or Baba would come to read him a bedtime story, and Sorin chose the same ones every time, regardless of how illogical it was to hear the same information time and again.

Sorin was, by nature, a very curious and observant child. Ever since he had been old enough to speak (which wasn't very old, considering the boy was practically genius), he had been solving puzzles and riddles and telling Mama or Baba his findings. At first, it was small things like where Mama had placed her earrings or how Baba kept his hair picture-perfect seemingly all of the time... _That particular mystery took me a while to figure out... _Sorin thought. But eventually, trouble would catch up to him when he knew things he wasn't supposed to know about and didn't tell. Or things people knew he knew and he told people who weren't supposed to know. Mama and Baba thought it was his perceptive nature.

But Sorin knew exactly how he learned to deduce the most logical conclusion above a mass of obvious red harrons.

"Sherlock Holmes, please, Mama." Mama chuckled.

"Which one, _mtoto_?"

"The Hound of the Baskervilles."

"Very well." Mama got up and went to the wall, where she pressed a button and a shelf slid out of the wall. Her eyes narrowed as she zeroed in on a particularly old paperback. It was well worn at the spine and edges, indicating frequent use. She opened it up and lied down next to Sorin above his starship comforter. He wiggled until he was right next to Mama, and then she began to read in her lilting story-telling voice.

"_Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles_, By Arthur Conan Doyle," She read. And even though it was only the title, Sorin was already enraptured.

"_Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table_..." Sorin repeated the beginning line by memory with Mama, who smiled as she continued into the story.

...

"..._Might I trouble you, then, to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini's for a little dinner on the way?_" Nyota looked down at her little six-year-old and smiled. After his birthday celebration in the rec room, everything had winded down to a normal evening, which she was glad for. She got up and put the book back on the retractable bookshelf and it slid back into the wall at the push of a button. She then went back over to her son and kissed the pointed tips of his ears, his nose, and then the space between his slightly slanted eyebrows. His nose scrunched a little and his fisted hand came up to rest by his face.

"Goodnight, _mtoto_." Nyota whispered softly before exiting the room, the door sliding shut with a soft _hiss._

...

Sorin awoke early the next morning. Or, at least that was what his chronometer said. He squinted out of his window. There was only dark space, and therefore to tell whether or not it was day or not outside of the ship was impossible. He slid out of bed and straightened the sheets and comforters before getting on his hands and knees and sliding out his "toy chest" (he scoffed at the word) and carefully picking through his newest belongings from his birthday celebration the day before.

A remote-control model of the _Enterprise _from Uncle Jim.

Fencing figurines from Hikaru.

A data chip for his PADD on the Russian language for beginners. Sorin was looking forward to having conversations with Pavel in the navigator's native tongue.

Another data chip, this time from Dr. McCoy, with information on mild diseases from exotic locations; _More pleasure reading, _Thought Sorin happily.

His new warm pajamas from Mama were in his clothes drawer, and...

His hands froze in their rummaging, before frantically moving things out of the way.

Where was _it?!_

He dumped out the entire box and sorted through all of his play-things and informational books, trying to find his most prized and cherished present. A data chip here, a remote to some gadget or other there-

But no tricorder.

His junior tricorder that Baba had specially made himself that had over three thousand downloaded elements, with buttons that were almost an exact replica of the real deal!

Sorin opened opened his clothes drawer and sifted through all of the sifty fabric material, even tossing some out of the drawer - no tricorder. He pressed the button the opened his closet and searched all of the pockets of his coats and jackets and robes- no tricorder. He opened his school satchel and looked between all of the PADDs he had to turn in come the next week- no tricorder there, no tricorder anywhere!

Sorin plopped down in the middle of the floor, too upset to even move.

That tricorder had been his most treasured possession for the few hours he had had it. He had scanned his birthday cake with it, and was fascinated by the composition of such a sweet treat. He then began scanning people- but Mama swatted him on the behind and told him it was rude, so he didn't get very far with that. It was his very best friend- besides Yorn Levski from the learning center on board.

Tired of moping, Sorin got back up and put two fingers from each hand on his temples, thinking. Where had he last seen it? _In the recreation room, _He thought. Determination defining his every step, he strode from his room and looked to the space where his father worked when not on the bridge, off of the living area. Baba was there, now, at his desk, facing away from Sorin.

Sorin, cognizant of his Baba's excellent hearing, tread softly across the living area, careful not to alert Baba. Luckily, he was too absorbed in his work to notice Sorin leave. Sorin did not want Baba to know that he had lost his present; it would make him think that he was not careful with his possessions, and therefore not ready to receive any more fun, hight-tech gadgets. Sorin sighed, and finally arrived at the door to the rec room. The door swished open to allow him entrance. There were shiny tables and stools, with a few decorations left over from the celebration the day before.

Sorin got on his hands and knees and searched for his tricorder again. He crawled 'round and 'round, and finally, a glint of something shiny cught his eye. Two excited to think, he stood and whacked his head on the underside of the edge of the table. _Whack! _Really hard.

"AAAGH!" His eyes watered with pain and it obscured his vision. He couldn't see the shiny object anymore; his eyes were watering too fast for him to blink it all out. Eventually, it became tears of frustration. He blindly reached out and grabbed something smooth. The tears stopped. He wiped his eyes and looked-

It was a tricorder... but something wasn't quite right. He wiped the rest of his tears and looked closer. It wasn't _his _tricorder. It was an _actual _tricorder. He flipped it over in his hands and examined it. On the back, there was a small dent, near the bottom right corner. He had a flashback of the day before, when he had been listening in on Baba and the ship's doctor's conversation.

_Dr. McCoy grumbled as he talked to Baba over cake; marble, not chocolate._

_"I swear, the new ensigns in sickbay are as clumsy as my ex-wife is crazy! I was rushing to perform an emergency surgery and one bumps into me and makes me drop my tricorder!"_

_Baba quirked an eyebrow. "Perhaps you should have a meeting and lecture on the importance of self-awareness and safety in the medical bay?" McCoy scowled and shrugged and slid his tricorder off of his shoulder to dig in to his cake. It sat dangerously close to the edge._

Sorin blinked and looked at the stool next to him. He looked up wearily at the underside of the table before sliding out from underneath and standing up. From his viewpoint, he could tell that this was the exact place that Dr. McCoy had been sitting when having the conversation with his father.

The doctor's tricorder was still here, in the rec room, and Sorin knew for a fact that Dr. McCoy wouldn't go anywhere without his trusty tricorder. Which led to the idea that... _maybe... _the doctor thought that he _did _have his tricorder with him. Sorin grinned a huge grin that, had it been possible, would have reached his little pointy ears.

...

"Dr. McCoy?" Leonard turned around scowling, before his expression lightened at the sight of one of his favorite people on board.

"Hey, little hobgoblin. What're you doing down here?" He asked curiously, kneeling down to Sorin's height. The little boy held out the doctor's tricorder.

"The tricorder that you are carrying with you- may I see it?" The doctor's eyebrows shot up on his forehead as he took the tiny gadget from the boy's hands and slid the one he had on his shoulder off and exchanged. Sorin smiled a small smile. "You must have grabbed mine by mistake yesterday, during my party. It has over three thousand of the elements of a real tricorder downloaded for recognition, and almost the exact same buttons."

"Well ain't that something... Sorry about that, little hobgoblin. Good detective work, figuring out the switch, too." Leonard straightened and slid the strap to his tricorder over his shoulder. Sorin beamed.

"Thank you, Doctor. I had best get back to my room before Baba realizes I went out on my own."

"Okay then. Be careful walking out of sickbay! There are some clumsy people around here..." He grumbled the last part under his breath, but Sorin heard anyway, due to his inherited Vulcan hearing.

He padded out of sickbay, only to run into a certain Chief Communications Officer coming back from Beta Shift.

...

"...And not to mention, how many sharp objects there are in sickbay! Sorin Nafari, don't ever, _ever_, walk out of these quarters without letting someone know where you're going again!" Mama was very thorough in just how many things could've gone wrong when Sorin had ventured out on his search. Including him being kidnapped by invading Klingons. "Do you have anything to say for yourself, young man?" Both Mama _and _Baba had crossed there arms and were standing in front of him while he sat on his bed.

Sorin lifted his tricorder from where it was lying on the space beside him, and, offering a small smile to his angered parentals, said, "I found it."

fin


End file.
